Yorky Pud

The World Poker Tour Malta Main Event has reached its final table after the 30 players who started on Day 3 were whittled down to the last eight. The chipleader when play resumes at 1300 CET is Tristan Clemencon who has a stack of 2,251,000 chips.

Of the 30 players who returned to the Casino at Portomaso, three of them knew they were going to leave empty handed, with nothing but memories to show for their efforts in Malta this past week. Shortly after the restart, Nesrine Kourdourli and Matt Giannetti entered a raising was on a Jc-5h-2h-Qs board that resulted in the last woman in the tournament being all in and at risk of elimination. The woman who recently finished tenth at WPT Grand Prix de Paris held AsQh but was in a whole world of pain as Giannetti turned over AcAh. No two outer on the river and Kourdourli was eliminated in 30th place.

She was followed out of the door first by Andras Fekete and then half hour later Giovanni Rizzo committed his stack with Ad9s on a 10s-9c-2h flop only to be called by the 10c9h of Christofer Williamson. The turn was the 3s, followed by a full house creating ten on the river and with that the bubble had burst and everyone with chips in front of them locked up at least €6,150.

As is usually the case, the bubble bursting caused a flurry of eliminations with Jean Marie Vanderborne (27th), Justin Bonomo (26th) and Tony G (25th) being the first few players to head to the cashier's cage. The next six hours after Tony G's demise saw the field reduced to just ten players and these were all seated together on an unofficial final table where they were told they would play two more hour-long levels or down to six players, whichever came sooner.

An hour and half into the ten-handed unofficial final table saw Salvatore Bianco eliminated when he was on the wrong side of an aces versus kings scenario with Tristan Clemencon, his KsKh no match for Clemencon's AcAd. Then ten minutes later Clemencon turned executioner again when he sent Manfred Sierke packing in ninth place. Then at just before 0215 in the morning, and with eight players remaining, Matt Savage called it a night and the players bagged up their chips and headed for some much needed sleep.

Thanks to his mini rush late in the day Clemencon has opened a substantial chip lead for himself. As mentioned, he starts with 2,215,000 chips and his nearest rival is Cecilia Prescaglini on 1,218,000. Third place going into the fourth and final day is Fabien Sartoris on 654,000 whilst Britain's Simon Trumper's 631,000 chips put him in fourth place. Mats Karlson starts the day with 452,000, Williamson on 510,000 whilst the two shortest stacks belong to November Nine member Matt Giannetti (309,000) and Filippo Bianchini (188,000).

Play resumes at 1300CET and will continue until the WPT Malta champion is crowned. The first player to be eliminated will pick up cash worth €16,760 but the eventual winner will take home €200,000, not bad for four days work!

Final table seat draw

Seat 1: Cecilia Prescaglini: 1,218,000
Seat 2: Filippo Bianchini: 188,000
Seat 3: Fabien Sartoris: 654,000
Seat 4: Matt Giannetti: 309,000
Seat 5: Mats Karlson: 452,000
Seat 6: Simon Trumper: 631,000
Seat 7: Tristan Clemencon: 2,215,000
Seat 8: Chrisofer Williamson: 510,000